Gender and sustainable consumption : Results and Conceptual Insights from Six Projects in the Research Programme "Sustainable Consumption - From Knowledge to Action"

Although the relevance of gender issues in research on
sustainability and sustainable consumption has been emphasized by
different authors over the last decade (e.g. Weller 2004;
Martine/Villarael 1997), there are still ‘gender gaps’
as well as a lack of differentiated research (Vinz 2009) in this
area. The integration of a gender perspective has been a prominent
demand in the call for proposals of the research programme
‘Sustainable consumption – from knowledge to
action’ funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and
Research in 2006. The presentation will discuss results related to
gender and sustainable consumption from six projects conducted
within this programme. These projects dealt with different aspects
of the field of sustainable
consumption, and results were gained on three different dimensions
of ‘doing gender’: - individual dimension: differences
between the sexes concerning attitudes, behaviours and orientations,
-structural dimension: role of gendered social structures and the
distribution of work in families and/or couples, and -symbolic
dimension: gendered patterns of interpretation, knowledge structures
and artefacts. Approaches at the individual level revealed for
example that – even if there are some areas where tasks are
distributed ‘traditionally’ among men and women (e.g.
women being more often responsible for cooking and washing) –
responsibilities are shared and decisions are made jointly in most
areas. Considering structural and symbolic dimensions allows for
contextualising and explaining differences and similarities between
the sexes. It shows for instance how life course transition changes
consumption patterns and demands in households as well as the
related distribution of tasks. Furthermore, it illustrates how
single consumption decisions and activities are embedded in the
broader context of social practices in the areas of homemaking and
everyday life. Overall, the results indicate a rather complex
relationship between gender and consumption that goes beyond merely
analysing individual differences. For a more developed understanding
of
the intertwined practices of 'doing gender' and 'doing consumption',
we conclude that future research should therefore provide further
analysis of the relevance of structural and symbolic dimensions and
their mutual interrelatedness with the individual dimension. These
findings have consequences for research programmes on sustainable
consumption. The analysis of gender and consumption as intertwined
practices cannot
be facilitated by simply adding gender as another variable. It
rather requires a major shift of perspective: individual behaviour
is not only embedded in a social context, but structural and
material aspects of action become more prominent when gender is
analyzed as a situated practice. With regard to methodology and
research design, recommendations will be provided on how to
integrate gender analyses into sustainability research
programmes.

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